Don't leave before the lights come on
by Penrose Quinn
Summary: But there's blood on your hands, and you always consider what's there to love about you? [Kurapika introspection. Leopika.]


Follows 1999 anime. AU in second person. Vague sexual implications. Leopika.

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It starts off with a feeling.

You think you're certain at first; when there's this unvoiced pull between you two and your mouth gravitates forward for a kiss—a chaste brush of the lips, until the aftermath crashes forth in a friction of licks and bites and breaths mingling in-between. Then you realize you're quite uncertain, after all. You don't understand the feeling when Leorio touches you; it's a bundle of complicated things, wrought hard and tangled in nerves, because once the heat settles in your groin and the oxygen rushes through your clenched teeth, the sensations feel too _good_.

Too good—simply too wonderful to be deserved by the likes of you. It's almost funny, how the most natural thing in the world can also feel so unnatural. It's surreal. The alteration of each kiss, of each shared sigh, when you both fall together in a heap on the sheets, but Leorio's a bit too kind to make sure if you're okay or if he's going a little fast in this mess. This lovely mess, you think, losing yourself over the rough palm of his hand on your cheek. It's endearing, and he's still too good for you.

Sometimes, you find the slow steady intimacy almost unbearable; the long fixated gaze, the soft bristles of his stubble on your shoulder, and the tentative caresses still asking if he should worship you here and there—and, _god,_ the buildup's tearing you apart to sweet oblivion. It makes you wonder if you've been his first because you know him well enough that he's no Casanova picking up women left and right and he's just _him_. And what's not to love about him?

But there's blood on your hands, and you always consider what's there to love about you? The thought cuts in the back of your skull like a razor blade and seeps deep into your marrow. The guilt gnaws at your insides, but you're too busy thinking how gentle his hands are, how soft his lips are, how his heart is too big for his chest cavity that it makes you wonder how it's not bursting like a supernova with the way he's pouring all his attention to you, making you feel as if you're his universe for a night.

Just a night where you're no murderer and he's no doctor—or maybe he still is, rending and repairing you back into pieces. You're burning with him, beginning to see stars at the back of your eyelids; clusters and cosmos and chaos, such splendid chaos, just when you reach that pinnacle with him, rocketing up to what almost tastes like infinity, shooting forth behind the moon like a comet. Closer, closer, _closer_ —and there's a clash of lips, of breaths, of nothings in the ear, the lock of your hair, the skin of your thigh. There's only the two of you in the darkness of one shared room. _Bliss._

Warm cheek pressed on your collarbone, Leorio's heaving out a pant. He looks like a slob, maybe a little older than he should, and you won't have him any other way. You've always been the cold lover in this relationship—when did you start calling this a _thing_ , anyway?—and while he recuperates himself and you're just at the brink of teasing him that he's acting like a geezer, you let your hand run over his dark hair, brushing across his scalp to the nape of his neck. It might as well be the most affectionate thing that you've ever done while he's doing the rest. You smile a little. Somewhere deep in your mind, you want to commit this memory forever, when he lies there cradled in your arms, even though you know better than anyone that it's just wishful thinking and that even the most precious things turn to ash and bones.

Something grips you there; your heart clogging on your throat and your lips clamped shut. The unspoken words intimidate you before they ever have a chance to be uttered aloud because you're stuck in the crossroad, thinking this may be the first and last time you can ever have him like this. You're going to die someday, whether it be the chains on your fingers or the spiders on your back. It's unbearable, how you can devastate him. Bring forth all the death and disaster you've always been made of. You can't hurt him that way.

Try as you might, there's still blood under your fingernails and webbed scars on your knuckles and the deep red in your eyes. You're still a murderer and he's a doctor, but you're still clinging onto the inevitable, onto him, always—

"What're you thinking?"

You don't reply, and Leorio's grumbling under his breath. You don't like pillow talk. Just how intimate a few spoken sentences can get because of it. So you don't even mutter a word. Absentmindedly, you realize that you miss him with his glasses on, which might as well be haphazardly on the floor with your rumpled clothes. There are still telltale marks at the bridge of his nose.

When Leorio languorously leans to your side, an arm over your naked waist, you stir from the sheets. However he stops you from rolling out of the bed, not bothering to pin you down with a glare. "You're busy, I know," he grouches from his pillow, voice deep and hoarse. "But I don't give a shit how busy you are."

You arch an amused brow at him. You snort. "Of course, you don't."

"Well, I'll be damned," Leorio retorts. "The bastard actually talks."

The corners of your lips quirk at his tone. Just before you quip back, he goes on headfirst:

"Kurapika, stay."

You stop, blinking at him. Leorio sighs.

"Stay."

Then you start to make half-assed excuses that it's too early, that you're too tired, that he's too warm, and that the world doesn't care if you leave or not—but Leorio cares enough, that's what matters. So you let his arms wrap around you and burrow yourself beside him, as if it's where you belong.

You stay, even just for awhile.

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 **Disclaimer: I don't own Hunter x Hunter.**


End file.
